Hispanic lawmakers want more Hispanic-opportunity districts

By Joe Holleyjoe.holley@chron.com

Published 7:10 pm, Thursday, April 7, 2011

AUSTIN — With Texas populous enough for four new seats in Congress, the four Hispanic lawmakers on the state House committee charged with drawing a new map took every opportunity Thursday to remind witnesses and their colleagues that the growth came courtesy of Hispanic Texans.

A new congressional map must reflect that demographic fact, they insisted.

Almost two-thirds of the state's 4.3 million population increase over the last 10 years was Hispanic, and Hispanics now account for 38 percent of the Texas population. Without the surge in Hispanic numbers, Texas would not be getting any new congressional seats.

Alvarado also noted during the Thursday hearing that she was talking about districts where Hispanics have an opportunity to influence the outcome of elections and pointed out that the Hispanic-opportunity district in Harris County is represented by Gene Green, an Anglo Democrat.

“In drawing the map we recognize the growth, but no one is asking for any guarantees, just opportunity,” she said.

Alvarado and her colleagues are charged with drawing new districts for the State Board of Education, the state House and Senate and Texas congressional seats. Each congressional district must contain exactly 698,488 residents.

Attorney Nina Perales, representing a coalition called the Texas Latino Redistricting Task Force, maintained that at least two of the new districts should have Hispanic majorities. The group offered two maps, both of which include nine Latino-majority seats out of the 36 seats the new census allows.

The new seats would go in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and in Starr and Hidalgo counties in the Rio Grande Valley.

Houston would keep its one Hispanic-opportunity seat, the 29th District, represented by Green.

The task force includes the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, the American GI Forum and the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

State Rep. Robert Alonzo, D-Dallas, said he could see four new Hispanic-opportunity districts.

“Statewide, because of the growth in Hispanic numbers, I believe there's a need for another Hispanic-opportunity district in Houston,” he said. “In addition to that, there would be one out of North Texas because of our numbers, one in the south, and perhaps one along the San Antonio-Austin corridor.”

Talk around the Capitol would suggest that lawmakers are focused at the moment on getting their own maps drawn before they turn their full attention to the congressional map, perhaps in a special session, said Trey Trainor, a Republican redistricting expert.

In Washington, meanwhile, reports of an internecine feud among Republican lawmakers suggests that the redistricting process has their undivided attention. The online news outlet Politico reported earlier in the week that U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Duncanville, unleashed a profanity-laced tirade last month against U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, over redistricting differences.

Barton reportedly accused Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and the Texas delegation's point person on redistricting, of supporting a plan that would split the four seats with Democrats instead of making at least three of the four primarily Republican. A Barton spokesman told reporters that reports of the feud were overblown.

Alonzo said Barton was disregarding the dictates of the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority voting opportunities.

“We understand that there's fair and there's legal,” the Dallas lawmaker said. “Fair in this war means that the majority decides, and they'll decide the lines of the majority they want. The reason for us being here is to remind them that if they don't do it the right way now, it's going to be done the right way in courts.”